[12308] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Name Reg. Time for Policy Change
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Sun May 15 11:41:29 1994
Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 21:38:41 -0400
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: bruce@phantom.com
Cc: nettech@crl.com, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Bruce Fancher's message of Fri, 13 May 1994 20:48:02 -0400 (EDT) <9405140048.AA18543@mailhost.phantom.com>
>From: bruce@phantom.com (Bruce Fancher)
>But even if they win and set a precedent in
>US courts, what's to stop some from registering a pepsi to a system
>in another country?
Pepsi no doubt has its trademark registered in every country which has
trademarks as a legal concept. Which is just about all of them.
Does anyone seriously believe that this domain/trademark issue is
interesting or innovative? My understanding of the trademark law is
that it doesn't much care about the medium, only that there is a
possibility of confusion. I don't see why the net or domain naming
introduces a new angle to this area of law. If a court decides you are
violating a mark then however you are violating it you either stop or
pay the consequences.
As much as I'd like to sympathize with Adam Curry I don't think he has
any chance of defending use of MTV's mark for such similar and related
activities (e.g. distributing information about rock+roll celebrities
etc.) On the other hand that's not really his point I don't think,
just that it's rather contentious of MTV to not just offer a peaceful
settlement of the matter without launching lawsuits. Assuming that is
what happened. In his note he did seem willing to immediately cease
and desist. That should be enough to buy peace unless they can really
argue that some real harm was done which I tend to doubt.
But I don't think there's any interesting underlying issue here at
all.
The only vaguely interesting area I could imagine would be if someone
was operating from a country where trademarks were not being enforced
(or, possibly, where you hadn't registered your mark but was
projecting into a country where you had) and how enforcement against
such a trademark violation would proceed. But even that sort of issue
has been broached before in other arenas, and it's a fairly
hypothetical idea to worry about. I think the new medium adds little
to this.
-Barry Shein
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